


Let Death Make a Room

by inteschre



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Holmes Family, POV Eurus Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-21
Updated: 2018-07-21
Packaged: 2019-06-14 00:31:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15376776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inteschre/pseuds/inteschre
Summary: Mycroft was right, in the end. She was a monster. It was alright anyway, because she had Sherlock’s love now.





	Let Death Make a Room

She thought Sherlock was a beautiful specimen—a perfectly balanced scale, with weights such as steely, logical intellect and wonderful emotional intelligence as complement. Mycroft was an unbalanced scale.

She thought of herself as rather a not-scale, with only the weights. She did not know how to reconcile the two. She could learn from Sherlock, she thought.

Eurus enjoyed her time spent with him during their violin lessons immensely, when he wasn’t busy poking fun at Mycroft or trying to appease their parents. He spoke to her; others only spoke at her. He was her favourite brother, because he was willing to cut himself open for her, in an innocent, careless way, much like how he treated everyone and everything else. She knew she was born with something broken inside, and she was immensely grateful and proud of Sherlock for trying to help her.

She was supremely curious of things and was quite disappointed it attracted the unwelcome attention of her oldest brother. Sherlock occasionally joined her on her quests, believing in the importance of knowledge. She cut herself once with a knife, slicing away the disgusting, interfering skin with deft fingers to find the brachioradialis and flexor carpi ulnaris, fascinating muscles working seamlessly in tandem whenever she flexed her arm. It was beautiful.

Later, when she was older, she changed her metaphor into a plane, a jet with her as the sole passenger gliding smoothly in the air when Sherlock befriended the little boy with blond curls. It felt more grand—she wanted it to serve as a reminder to herself of her isolation, which became her shield for comfort.

The shoving did it, pushed her over the edge. She needed Sherlock’s attention on her, and the other boy was taking it away. Sherlock had a limited amount of energy and patience. By removing Redbeard from the equation, Sherlock would bestow more of it on her. It was simple, a flawless game to get Redbeard into the well with the promise of treasure, like leading a dog with treats. If you knew what people wanted, they could be easily led anywhere you wanted, she discovered. Like a fly on a venus fly trap. _Snap_.

—

The plane started shuddering. It had never happened before! She hoped it was just a bad spot of turbulence. She noticed all the dead people around her and almost screamed. Her parents! No amount of shaking would wake them up. Where was Sherlock and more importantly _why had he abandoned her_! It sent her into a state of panic and pain. She looked out the windows; it was dark and stormy outside. She was lost. She couldn’t hope to find Sherlock all the way up here, so she sat and hoped that he’d find her instead. She hoped and hoped.

—

 _I that am lost, oh who will find me?_  
_Deep down below the old beech tree._  
_Help succour me now the east winds blow._  
_Sixteen by six, brother, and under we go!_

—

Objectively, she assessed it as a manifestation of her guilt and confusion at what she’d done. She tried to avoid closing her eyes by staying awake and singing a song to him, to entice him to play the game, and he laughed. He loved playing games with her. She loved it when he laughed. He laughed and laughed; it was like honey to her ears. She didn’t understand why they were taking her away though. She kicked and screamed and cried, but Sherlock only stared at her with flat eyes.

The game did not work and she was devastated and confused. Why did it not work? Such cases were rare; only Sherlock would stumble her sheer intellect. Well, if she couldn’t have his love, no one should.

She engulfed Musgrave Hall in flames.

—

They took her away; locked her somewhere far far away from Sherlock, hidden away completely from humanity. The years dragged by, and she occasionally wondered what Sherlock was doing, and if he’d missed her? No one really talked to her anymore save the guards and the Governor who asked her meaningless questions which she did not bother answering.

Mycroft visited her occasionally. He was all grown up now, dressed immaculately in bespoke suits and carefully coordinated pocket squares and ties.

“You look exactly how I’d pictured you when we were young,” she said, when he’d entered the cell.

Mycroft looked down to the floor for a moment, before speaking. “It is believed that your intellectual abilities can aid the gover—”

“How’s Sherlock? Is he coming to visit soon?” She asked, hope welling up in her. She stood up from the bed and assessed her brother. It took her less than a second to connect the dots. Mycroft shifted his weight slightly.

“He will not be visiting.”

“And you think it apt. Why?”

Mycroft looked aghast for a very brief moment before covering it up with a bland smile. “We think it will hardly be a joyous reunion considering the circumstances when you last saw each other.”

“You’re not answering the question,” she said, smiling at him. His discomfort amused her. For someone who so determinedly abhorred emotion and had already locked it neatly away into little boxes, he could be so easy to startle. She rested her chin on her hand and stared thoughtfully at the wall. “It’s like a fire. You can’t really hope to contain it, can you, Mycroft? Even you should know that it’ll be uncovered one day, and when it is, it’ll burn the _heart_ out of him. How can you bear to do that to him?”

“Sherlock’s choices no longer concerned you the day you set fire to our ancestral home, Eurus!” He was breathing hard now.

“Do the right thing for him then, brother dear,” she whispered, and smiled a bland, ironic smile.

She requested for a violin, a Stradivarius. A gift from her, to her. It was comforting, imagining Sherlock’s presence here with her, even if it meant that she had to close her eyes.

—

She heard whispers, little whispers, at first. It seemed that Sherlock was sensational news now, but she thought Jim Moriarty to be even more so, playing games with her brother, capturing his undivided attention and applying pressure on all the right points. So she invited him for a chat, and spent five very fruitful minutes setting up communication means and discussing long term plans. The best way to help herself was to help others, by helping interesting Jim with his posthumous games. Compared to Jim’s ideas, she conceded her own game to be rather dull. _The Final Problem_. Perhaps that was why Sherlock had abandoned her so many years ago.

After Jim died, she started her plan with an air of excitement around her. Initially they tried to ignore her when she chatted with the guards on how their day was, how _oh so boring_ it was to be stuck on a dingy old island with the mentally unsound (here, she scoffed internally. There was no one who was mentally unsound—only people with vastly differing perspectives and a lack of moral code to confirm their views), and how utterly unappreciative the higher-ups were to their hard work. Then she made boring deductions of the guards and confided secrets in them about each other and dazzled them with her intellectual prowess. The stoic ones, who were less susceptible, she had to resort to subtle threats. Not too difficult, since they mapped their lives onto their bodies for everyone to see, in every crease, crinkle and corner. It was a few years before they finally agreed to do away with the glass.

She got access to the Internet, googled her brother, and learnt of John Watson. Sherlock had gotten himself another best friend! She presented herself as a flighty adventuress. She shared similar features with Sherlock, so the entire process was rather smooth. A rather strong-willed man, she thought, since he eventually managed to restrain himself. He would be a great player in the game.

Then she visited Sherlock as Faith Smith. She was so excited, because she could finally spend genuine time with her brother. He was still as endearing. It was endlessly fascinating to see her brother think, so sweetly. She saw why he chose to be a detective, why he chose to help people personally without giving up his thirst for intellectual stimulation. She handed the gun over willingly.

—

She closed her eyes and found herself sitting on the aisle. She thought hard, taking deep breaths to clear the stars bursting in front of her. The intense guilt and pain had plagued her for far too many years—she was going to crash soon, and she could feel it in her bones.

The game would be designed as an experiment, to answer the most important question. That was the only way to get his attention so he’d forgive her. She’d drop clues throughout the experiments and hope that he’d get there by the end.

__—_ _

_Emotional context. Deep waters, Sherlock, all your life in all your dreams._

__—_ _

She’d made him choose between his sibling and his best friend again, and he’d chosen to shoot himself. She had finally found her answer, and now it was time for Sherlock to find his.

—

She stopped talking from then on, just to be on the safe side. Mycroft was right, after all. She was a monster. It was alright anyway, because she had Sherlock’s love now.


End file.
